Shadows
by StarsAtNight
Summary: Gale and Katniss are reaped for the 74th Hunger Games.
1. Chapter 1: Trees

Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games.

Movement behind me – merely a greyish discolouration in the subtle green and brown shadows of the mighty forest.

Sunset is coming – evident in the increasingly-significant butter-gold streaks that in-filtrate and encroach on the deepening blue of the late afternoon sky.

He places a hand on my shoulder.

"Katniss."

Gale's telling me that it's time. That it's time to go and attend the reaping of the 74th Hunger Games, the artificial killing field where youths are placed to battle to their own bloody, mutilated deaths.

Forty-two and twenty slips. Will luck and sheer chance be enough to distract the gloved hands of pink glitter and ribbons? Will they be ample to keep my brother figure from the torture and suffering of the killing fields?

He sees it in my eyes too. Silver, ash, steel and mist all in one, shadow upon shadow, overlapping in beauty and harmony. Made all the more beautiful by the reflection of the pure gold and reddish-pink of the fire of this tragic sunset that shall see twenty three youths to their deaths.

"Backlit by the sun, you look beautiful," he whispers, fingers cupping my face, and in that one gesture he breaks my barriers and leaves me vulnerable to the passionate fire of repelled emotions.

My hand reaches up to stroke his chiselled, angelic face, backlit by fire.

"Before one of us dies?"

Or both of us, actually.

"Okay."

Just one kiss. Just one minute of love, one minute of keeping absolutely no secrets at all from each other. One minute to move as one, to wrap my arms around his neck and feel his own around my waist.

"But if one of us goes, the other has to stay," we whisper, words coming in perfect harmony. "To continue the life."

We don't mention that it will be unbearably difficult and as close to impossible as the complete eradication of Panem's evil.

The time of the reaping is abundant with terror and tears – terror in the screams of the stormy sky and our shaking bodies, tears in the cold water falling from the bruised dark clouds and in the salty droplets leaking from our eyes and forming diamonds in our lashes. Terror especially in the names that are called - the names of the two people who are little more than the grey shadows that dart as one in the rain-blurred greens of the trees.


	2. Chapter 2: Farewells

Chapter Two

And there stand our mentor and escort, both hideous in appearance, and probably just as hideous on the inside.

Her thick, bright pink hair has been braided and piled in a spiral pattern on the top of her head, while his own hair is made up of dirty, limp brown ringlets that hang sloppy and saturated with liquor around his greasy face. One of the Peacekeepers actually has to help haul him up the steps to the lobby of the Justice Building. Gale and I exchange a smirk, although we know that this drunken man is the man who is in charge of our lives right now.

We are dragged to separate rooms draped in splendour, maroon velvet, mahogany and gold – more monetary value than I have ever seen in one place. I stroke one plush futon and try not to wince at the thought of those whom I love, who I shall never see again.

Well, at least I'm taking one with me, right?

I try to be strong, as much for myself as for the weeping souls that will see me off to the train.

The door bursts open and I find myself in the arms of my little sister. I look down at her sweet, beautiful face and sweep a hank of blonde hair back from her forehead, finding her eyes cast in deep shadow and her cheeks tearstained. My heart breaks and my knees hit the hardwood floor. As much as I'd love to hug her and kiss her forehead, practical things must be said here.

But in the absence of a certain hunter in the next coming weeks, my words are lost before they touch my incapable tongue.

"Gather in the woods and sell your cheese. Take my things and hunt in the woods." I know better than anyone that my sentimental baby sister is not a hunter, but I'll bet that she can do it. And if not, she'll find another means of survival.

"Go to the Hob. Trade. Do what I did." I take her shoulders and stare into her sky-blue eyes. "Prim. You have to do it. For our mother, for yourself. Keep Gale's family in supply too."

I hug her, kiss her forehead and turn to my mother.

The woman who I love yet distrust.

"You...I'm sorry. I'm sorry for how I treated you in the past." I hug her and kiss her cheek. She whispers urgently in my ear.

"I am the one to apologize, but what's done is done, and I promise that I will be the responsible mother you never had. I love you, my child."

Last words, last looks, and they're gone. Prim is screaming and crying out for me, and I touch her hand for the last time before the door slams.

Next comes Gale's family. Rory and Vick come in first, struggling to stand under the crushing weight of their older brother's impending death. Their eyes are red-rimmed and wet, and so are their noses. Hazelle is next, fighting her tears twice as hard as her sons.

And in comes Posy, toddling along, crying hysterically, and I start to tear. She's only four, and already she has a lost a father and a brother. How can they subject a four-year old child to such tragedies?

I hug them all and look them in the eyes.

"I promise you that Gale will coming home. And if he doesn't, I swear that I will avenge him. Make his killer suffer the bloodiest death of all the tributes." And I will.

It's so amazing how love fuels hate – how compassion and selflessness makes me such a bloody, violent murderer. Normally, I would hate myself for such thoughts. But this throws everything out of proportion – these next few weeks will change many, many lives, no matter who survives and who dies.

Then they are pushed from the room. Although they are gone from my sight, I still see the little girl with the bouncing black curls and the destroyed future, and the thought of her pushes me to the floor.


	3. Chapter 3: Ashes

Chapter Three

The train ride is its own special kind of awful. I'm too choked up to either notice my surroundings or smile for the camera, so I just clutch Gale's hand and make my way to isolation.

We don't come out to eat. I'm pretty sure they'll be feeding the lowly District kids scraps of horse hoofs, instead of their fancy stews and chickens and beefs. And if not, their despicable genius Hunger Games planners would want to fatten us up to make us less agile in the arena.

Instead Gale and I lie in each other's arms on the thick carpet of one of the bed rooms, murmuring reassurances and trying fruitlessly to convince each other to let the other go home.

I stare into his eyes – still grey, but a different kind. Instead of silver and mist blending to form an otherworldly beauty, the windows to his soul are closed and overcast, reminding me of the woebegone stormclouds that cast deep shadow over District 12 just this evening, erasing all traces of the picturesque sunset that should have dominated the sky.

And just like those stormclouds is the liquid that wets his eyes, water that I wipe away before they fall and resemble _exactly_ the dark force of nature that brings deeper despondency to the already bleak district.

And I suddenly recall the same colour in the baby girl's eyes, a perfect picture of anguish with a frame of long, black lashes. Which brings me to the blue of that other little girl, the one who is turning from healer to hunter.

Hate burns in me, a fire as monstrous and deadly as the one that killed my father. The Games changes lives. Not for the better, but for the worse.

And I know that I will personally ensure that District 12 will have another male victo this year. And if not, I am going to make them pay for it.

As if he can read my mind, Gale whispers, "That was not the last time you will see District 12."

Perhaps. But it is the last time I will ever see the District 12 that I know.

The Capitol makes me flinch and I tighten my grip on Gale's hand.

It's so bright and pretty, in a _sick _way that makes me want to tear all those glittery architectural wonders down and throw the rubble at the grotesquely dressed citizens. With their impeccably-styled hair, flawlessly polished alabaster skin and ostentatiously enhanced features, they were – every one of them – clearly obsessed with looks and repelling enough to physically make me sick.

I am glad to finally break away from the crowd, but the presence of Capitol-raised people is perpetual and the most I can do is put up with them.

My prep team introduces themselves in the exact accent and tones that Gale and I poked fun at in the woods. I tune them out and lie where they want me to, managing to ignore the ripping sounds and stinging pain while they remove my body hair.

In fact, when my stylist comes to meet me, I look in his direction and let out a snarl to rival that of the wild dogs that used to attack me.

The fact that he is outstandingly different – plainer – from the others did nothing to endear him to me. So what? It must be another kind of repulsive fashion trends he's promoting.

But the hated thing just smiles.

After fifteen minutes straight of ignoring his talk and concentrating on the rich Capitol food, he grabs my shoulder and forces me to look at him.

"Katniss, I am not just one of them."

I look at him suspiciously. Isn't that what they all say? They're all so freakishly different that they aren't even part of one crowd.

But maybe I'm being too apprehensive. I listen.

"I don't believe in making myself a different man. I don't believe what they believe."

Listening.

"I am not going to make you a freakish abomination. Neither in your chariot rides nor during your interview."

I speak to him for the first time. "Then what are you going to make me? There's nothing to make me into except a freakish abomination, just like the rest of them." Except Gale. Because nothing can pull off a freak with him.

"I don't blame your apprehension, nor your hatred for us. We've all been terrible monsters to you. In fact, I welcome your feelings." He stares into my eyes. "Just give me a chance."

I do.

And I find myself standing on a wrought iron chariot, dressed as a human-shaped, but otherwise perfectly normal, lump of coal, with a cape and a headdress. A reasonably fashionable lump of coal.

So much for trusting.

But when we roll out into the soft violet of the Capitol twilight and he lights us on fire, I see for real what I am.

I look into the screens showing the tributes, and find two fires burning bright and beautiful, reflecting off their grey eyes and casting their faces in flickering gold shadow. I clasp his hand tightly and look into his eyes, hoping to find an improvement over the storm that roils in both of us and is still in me, undying and stronger than ever. But his are as dead and dry as ash, perfectly fitting the flickering fire that burns above.

I begin to wonder if we should disguise our ashy eyes, but I decide on no. Being friendly and accomodating is only for those who wish to win, and I don't, and neither does Gale. So we just stare down at our linked fingers, placed on the front rail of the chariot, and wonder if this pretty twilight is real or one of the Capitol's convincingly-built artificial lightings.


	4. Chapter 4: Tributes

Chapter Four

Waking to the black night and the perpetual, initally deafening pound of rain against the building is disorienting. But he's there to remind me that much of Panem is experiencing similar heavy rain and storms right now, and it is six-thirty in the morning instead of midnight.

I sit upright, preparing to descend the tall bed, and suddenly a jolt of confused shock runs through me, my bare feet hesitating a foot from the floor. Then I relax. There is nobody sleeping on the floor beside my bed. No dishevelled yellow cat hissing at me. And there will never be anyone there ever again. Not the same people. Only the shadows that grow darker with their proximity to the bed.

Gale takes my hand and hugs me tightly, rocking me gently on his knee as if I am a child. But judging by our sizes, I probably am a child to him.

"Gonna shower?"

I lean back against his tough, muscled torso and sigh morosely. "Mm." I don't want him to see the water in my eyes, which are playing along with both the stormy colour and weather as his once had. I don't want him to hear the crack in my voice, made raspy by a badly constricted throat.

"'Mm' yes or 'mm' no?"

I decide to risk a word.

"No."

Hopefully, if I hide my face, he won't know that I'm finally crying for my lost home and bereaved family. But the boy knows me far too well to be fooled.

He doesn't even have to look at my face to know that I'm tearing up. He just holds me tighter to his chest and buries his face in my sleep-mussed hair, rocking me more noticeably now. "But, Katniss, you have someone here who loves you."

"So do you."

We can battle as strong a physical adversary as the world can offer us, but passion is insurmountable and proves a much bigger challenge than the one we are used to. Coupled with the love and bond we share, it is overwhelming. So when we submit and our lips meet, fire erupts from that one hidden volcano meant for us to share and swallows us in a tsunami of fervid emotion.

During training, we meet the other tributes. Neither Gale nor I had bothered to watch the other reapings, preferring to sit around and daydream until it got down to solid advice and killing-field preparation.

The traditionally angelic participants from District 1 are, as many of the others had been, blonde They are a boy with short spiky wheat-coloured hair and a girl who looks about seventeen, with long golden waves cascading gracefully down her back.

District 2's tributes are, as usual, overconfident and arrogant. The boy growls out his words in a wolf's voice that must certainly be fake. The girl is only twelve but she speaks with a nasty sneer to her melodic voice that implies bad intentions and evil.

I begin to drift off into the shadowy world of the arena then, only the most striking finding a place in my memory. The girl from District 4, who has an unusually kind face and long brown hair with gentle waves to match the teal, white-capped ones of her district. A boy in 7 with an unusually large build that reminds me of the trees that his hometown works with. Another boy from 10 who looks as if he might be born in 12's Seam, judging from his black hair, grey eyes and scarred, skinny body. And then an eighteen-year old girl from 11 with almond-shaped brown eyes, glossy black hair, skin the colour of roasted chestnuts and muscles rippling along her limbs and body.

There's a woman who's clearly calling the shots. Her skin is a shade of white caught somewhere between cream and alabaster, and her jet black, shiny hair is in stark contrast with it. Her eyes are red and violet, and her lids are dusted with gold powder that reminds me of the shadows cast on 12 during the sunrise and sunset.

I shudder. This woman is just another one of the freakish monstrosities here in this severely corrupted city. But what am I really expecting? Someone like Cinna and Portia? These are ingenious sadists with a taste for human – district human – blood.

"These are the people," I hiss to Gale, gesturing subtly at the trainer and the succintly dressed men and woman seated on plush velvet armchairs on a ledge above us, who are clearly the leaders. "The angelic, pretty little beasts who give us places to die."

"Don't do anything rash yet. Did you ever hear Haymitch give any advice for training?"

"No."

"We're on our own, aren't we?"

"We always were."

We train and practice and learn until the sun finds its place directly overhead and shines its brilliant illumination down on this wretched city. When it does, we gather at the dining table.

I get my food and sit next to Gale, who wraps his arm around my waist and ignores the shocked and disgusted looks from the table's other occupants, preferring instead to ask me, "Allies?"

I'm definitely going to ally with my beloved hunter, so that I may protect him and bring him home myself, but I know he is talking about the others.

"I don't mind the girl from 11, but I'd rather it just be you and I." Because I'm not confident that I can take her if our alliance goes haywire and she tries to kill Gale.

"Nobody else is worth working with. The girl from 11 is strong, but she isn't very good in anything we don't already do well in ourselves."

Just us then. I survey the kids at the table, noting the Career males' hills and heaps of muscle and their district partners' sword-ready fingers. The tributes from 3 are short and look more smart than battle-ready. The ones from 5, where they make chemicals, look mildly intelligent and crafty. Six's tributes are small in build and quiet. 7 and 11 boast muscles to rival that of the Careers. However, those from 8, 9 and 10 are skinny and underfed.

The Careers, 7 and 11 are the only ones who pose real problems. Gale would be evenly matched with any one of them, while I would be easily defeated.

Arrows are my only hope. I'm no good in hand-to-hand combat, and not particularly talented in anything else. I have to get a bow and arrows. Otherwise, Gale might not make it home.

The days of training pass quickly and before long Gale and I sit alone on the dining table, our foreheads pressed together and hands entwined. No words are exchanged, nor are they required. I can read every twitch of his body, and he can read mine.

Then his name is called, and he breaks away, kisses my cheek and leaves.

It's cold and lonely here without Gale's warmth and embrace. I sit on the sleek steel bench, my forehead pressed against the cool metal table, waiting for my name to be called. I know what I'm going to do.

I only have to wait ten to twenty minutes before I go in.

And there they sit, resplendent in their flowing robes, two metres from the floor. I look around the room, not wanting to meet the apathetic eyes of these flagitious Gamemakers.

There are stations for every kind of skill that would come in handy in the arena – weapons, tree climbing, knot-tying, etc.

I pick up a bow, aim, and shoot.

Then I put it down and leave, the gasps of the evil echoing throughout the room like the scream of the terrified bouncing off the walls of a vast cave.


	5. Chapter 5: Surprises

"You shot the-"

"Yeah." I stroke his cheek. I'm proud of myself for that – for shooting the wine bottle sitting on their mahogany banquet table. Although the abhorred oppressors' reactions were too mild for satisfaction – mere gasps – it was much better than watching them drink, dance and laugh while I fought for Gale's life.

"Job well done." He touches my face and I lean into his hand, closing my eyes. We have so little time to enjoy this new version of us. We went from awkward, grudging allies to companions to best friends and eventually to the two halves of a whole that existed long before it was acknowledged.

The last rays of the evanescent sun slant through the window of my room in the Training Centre, bathing us both in its gold-orange shimmer. I lean against him and let him wrap an arm around my waist, watching the sunlight's glow behind my eyelids.

It would be perfectly pleasing and extremely fulfilling simply to sit like this for the rest of our lives, but there are things to do if we want to keep the other alive. So after awhile I turn, sigh and say, "The scores."

"They can wait," he says, and pulls me closer, leaning down.

It is already our third kiss, but that does not mean that it's less appealing. I find my lips moving in harmony with his, matching exactly the dancing flames of that familiar, blazing fire of our love. The only sounds are the quickening beats of our hearts and our ragged, uneven breaths, although our emotions suggest otherwise.

Love, fire, passion and dozens of other unnamed sensations pulse strong and fast in our veins, introducing new hearts that are light as a butterfly's wings and, like those wings, also part of one being. His breath tickles my nose and I sigh, allowing the warmth of love and sunshine to overwhelm me.

But of course the shrill voice of our grotesque escort interrupts one of the few happy moments the victims of the pernicious get to enjoy. We linger on the bed for another minute, foreheads pressed together, before standing and meandering down to the living room.

We sit together on the crescent-shaped black leather sofa next to Cinna and Portia, keeping our hands discreetly entwined. I lean my head on his shoulder.

The Careers land nine to eleven, and the rest do either reasonably well or average.

When 12 comes around, I expect to find a zero beside our faithful interviewer Caesar's face, but I find a 10. I can't say that I'm really surprised, though. I figured that the score came from being able to shoot the cork off a wine bottle with an arrow.

Gale gets a 12.

I twist to look at him and demand answers, but he's smirking, and suddenly my words fall off my tongue and I'm transported back to hundreds upon hundreds of different, happy moments, when he'd give me that smirk and I'd smile back, watching every last shadow of tribulation on his face lighten and disappear.

"You did a snare, didn't you?" I ask when I manage to break free of the flashbacks that remind me painfully of the home and love that I leave behind.

He smiles back and leans his face into my hair. "Ensnared the Capitol flag."

Beautiful.

The night of the interview has come upon us, leaving me in a pretty red-orange dress patterned randomly with varying shades of blue, gold and red. Cords and ribbons of similar colour have been braided into my hair. I feel heavy and immobile, tottering around in heels and a skirt to the floor. But most of all I feel nervous.

Haymitch has given us not one piece of advice, so Gale and I have decided between ourselves and came up with ideas and strategies. I'm to be a straightforward, shy girl, while he's to be outright and confident. I'm rather certain that we can pull it off, but can we win the audience's favour?

The moment my name is called, I walk out onstage with anxious blinks and glances at the cheering, clapping audience. Caesar, with his midnight blue suit and matching hair and makeup, greets me lightly and asks me to sit down. I follow his instruction.

"Well, Katniss, you and your district partner were absolutely phenomenal during the opening ceremonies. How did you really feel about it?"

My mouth moves for me, speaking a carefully worded lie. "Nervous. I was...I wasn't told much about the fire that my stylist later claimed to be a synthetic."

Am I doing it right? Worry stabs me in the stomach and suddenly the lights are too bright and the frigid air-conditioning is too warm. I must really look sick, since I am, but the audience laughs and I'm reassured.

"How do you feel about this city? Are you liking it?"

I feel that this city is exceedingly corrupt and should be reduced to ashes on the wind, but saying that wouldn't earn Gale or me any points, so I say, "I find it wonderfully beautiful and modern, but don't you think it's a little bright?"

He laughs, and on the questions flow, their subjects ranging from my favourite foods to my daily routine. I try to be as honest as I can, but I find that I tell more lies than truth. But still, the answers roll off my tongue in smooth fluence and I don't feel too uncomfortable.

Until he asks me about my family.

I start to bristle then, but I quickly force the automatic growl back down my throat, instead faking a laugh and looking down at my hands, playing with a handful of my skirt. The time will be up soon, and the buzzer will go off. I just need to fidget nervously for a few more seconds.

Thankfully, the buzzer sounds right then and I look up with a sigh, feigning regret and disappointment. "If I only had ten more seconds of your time and the right words to say, I would tell you all of the wonders of my beautiful family."

He gets to his feet and takes my hand, tugging me up. "You summed them all up in just a few words, there. And if there are more details to be shared, we can discuss them when you're a victor." Then he turns to the audience to dismiss me.

If he does want to know more, I'll tell Gale to pass on the message after I die.


	6. Chapter 6: Fires

A/N: I'm sorry that I haven't updated yesterday or this afternoon, since the other chapters have been posted daily. I was busy with some work and projects. Anyway, enjoy!

The brilliant sun reflects off the solid gold surface of the Cornucopia and shines in our eyes. I blink, surveying the arena, taking in long grass swaying in the breeze, a lake to my right and the painfully familiar scent of pine trees. Some superficial relief finds itself in my overwhelming anxiety. Pine trees. How long I have gone without them.

I try to find Gale, look into his beautiful grey eyes one last time just in case this malevolent bloodbath claims one or both of us. But I can't find him, and the gong will sound in five seconds.

Five. My eyes focus on the silver bow and arrows at the mouth of the Cornucopia, glaringly bright in the sun.

Four. My feet shuffle and turn in the direction of the great golden horn, spilling over with the things that will win the 74th Hunger Games for Gale Hawthorne.

Three. I lean forward, biting my lip and preparing for imminent death.

Two.

One.

Zero.

The gong sounds, breaking the deathly silence of the arena, and I leap forward, sprinting to life and survival. I pause for a second at the mouth, grabbing a large haversack, knife and my precious bow and quiver, and make for the woods with all the strength I have. A blade slices my forearm and lodges in a backpack by my side. I snag both knife and pack and run, ignoring the pain and the blood flowing from my limb like water from a Capitol tap.

Gale is still at the Cornucopia, locked in a struggle with the boy from 1. I whip an arrow from my quiver and send it flying at him. He falls, Gale wrenches the bloody arrow from the boy's skull and sprints in my direction. I turn and head for the trees.

We reach the treeline before the other shelter-seeking tributes, but we don't stop running until we're a good three hundred metres in. Then I mean to strip a nearby bush of its luscious, familiar blackberries, but Gale grabs my shoulder and spins me around, throwing his arms around me.

"We survived the bloodbath," he breathes in my ear. "I never thought you would, Catnip."

I smile against his shoulder. "You underestimate me too much."

We stay locked in an embrace for a long time, then he sighs regretfully in my hair. "We need to find water."

And yes we do – physical needs are almost, but not as, important as emotional needs. So I exhale, drop my arms from his neck and we continue on our way, joined by our hands, under the watchful eyes of the cameras.

XxX

We trek and deal with our parched throats for hours until we have the good luck to find a spring – a perfect little place to live for one or more nights. The spring flows into a clear little pool, the minimal sunlight turning its gentle ripples white. The place is clear of trees, but the surrounding ones shelter it with their great canopies of lush green leaves, filtering thin beams of simlarly coloured sunshine through the spaces. It's perfect and peaceful enough to remind me of the lake my lost father used to bring me to.

"Pretty place to hole up in," Gale says, leading me forward and sitting us down against a boulder. He takes the water containers and fills them with the spring water. I hand him the iodine, and half an hour later, after quenching our thirst, we half-lie, half-sit against the boulder, hands entwined between us, foreheads pressed together in a show of both love for each other and defiance at the Capitol. Oh yes, the cameras will be on us now, and the oppressors will see that the people whom they have forced to be cold murderers can still love – have, in fact, fallen in love with the very people whom they have to kill.

I close my eyes, drinking in the warmth, the scents...

"I love you, Catnip."

I don't need to say anything; I just sigh and hold his hand tighter. The sound of his voice among the music of the forest – the rustle of the leaves, the bubbly babble of the spring – stands out the way an angel in a crowd of people does. One with the crowd, yet so different, so beautiful. Possessing an ethereal quality that none other has. I watch bits of colourful sunshine dance on the back of my eyelids and shift closer to the warmth of his body. His arms willingly welcome me, and in their gentle, loving embrace I fall asleep.

XxX

I wake hours later to warm breath on my neck and turn over to find Gale sitting propped up against the boulder, snapping a twig into bits and throwing them into the pool. He turns to look at me, his face forlorn.

"The death count."

I hadn't bothered to count the cannon shots after the bloodbath. I had been obsessed with hunting, finding water, and making sure that Gale was still by my side. Now, I would find out who were the innocents whose lives had been taken by the Capitol this morning. He helps my groggy body up the limbs of a nearby tree and we part the leaves above our heads until we can see the sky.

The anthem plays – the hated music – and then the faces appear.

The girls from 3 and 5, the boy from 8, both from 9 and the girl from 10. I see their faces and a surge of sadness rushes through me. They died before they truly had a chance to live. The girl from 3 and the boy from 8 were twelve and thirteen, for goodness' sake.

I would very much like to say that aloud, but cameras are trained on us now, so I just look into Gale's moonlit grey eyes and communicate my feelings. And he does too – I sense great depths of sadness and a strong sense of rebellion. What else could he be feeling? We make our way down to the ground and resume our previous positions.

I roll on my back, closer to him, keeping our fingers laced together and staring at the sky, waiting for the death count to end.

Gale points up at the dead children's faces. "Look, Katniss. See how they're all so skinny? The skinny ones always go first. I'd be up there if not for you. I'd be a bony, bloody mess if you hadn't found me. Do you see, Katniss? I'll _die_ without you. So don't you ever leave me alone."

This must be a strange Games – it has an alliance that won't ever turn. The audience must be going crazy over the two lovers from District 12 and how the odds are most definitely not in their favour. The star-crossed lovers from District 12.

"Gale, I can't survive without you," I whisper. "You of all people should know that. And I am never going to let you go."

For a long, long while we are silent, staring up at the slivers of star-dotted sky visible through the leaves. My mind keeps straying, and I keep finding myself in the dull, dreary world of a Gale-less District 12. And then there is water in my eyes, so I try to focus on the gentle breeze, feather-like, caressing our skin and blowing away the slightly-balmy air clinging to our perfect little pool. There's a patch of wildflowers beside my leg, their delicate white petals brushing lightly against my ankle. I reach out to stroke their thin, fragile stems, and under the watchful gazes of the stars, Gale, and the cameras, I fall asleep.

XxX

Waking to the roar of an inferno and the snap and thud of cracking and falling trees is the stuff of nightmares.

"Get up, Katniss!" Gale screams, loaded down with our bags, his face right in front of mine.

The overwhelming, suffocating smell of smoke permeates my body and jerks me to life, panic blossoming in my mind. I leap to my feet, pull a bag off Gale's back and run with him.

Running.

Where are we going? What are we doing?

Running.

Choking on thick smoke. Blinded by the bright fires.

Running.

Hands tightly clasped. Duck under this burning branch. Hurdle this flaming shrub.

Running.

Right in front of the fire. Chased by it. Eyes sweeping across the vegetation. What am I looking for?

Running.

Staggering on. Smoke in our lungs, water in our eyes. My legs are so heavy. My whole body is so heavy. Is Gale okay? Is he still there?

Sprinting on and on long after the flames end, not registering the lack of burning things and the clearer air in our lungs. We run until we can go no further, then we drop. I drop first, my legs liquefying and giving out underneath me, and I take Gale with me. We lie panting and coughing on the mossy forest floor. The cool plants feel good against my heated, sweaty skin.

I jerk to my knees and start to choke and spit, and so does Gale, hacking and coughing the toxins from our systems.

When we're finally done we fall again, our hands linked and inseparable even in unconsciousness.

And maybe, just maybe, the blue eyes of the black, white-flecked mockingjay are looking down at us in sorrow.


	7. Chapter 7: Stars

Chapter 7

I wake to the sound of breath rasping in my throat and the dull bang of a cannon shot. A death?

My hand is holding tightly on to the fingers of another, tight enough to crush his bones. I turn to find Gale lying beside me, his face pale and his skin covered with a shiny pallor. Bags and a few weapons are strewn in a careless circle around us, as if protecting us from things that are too numerous to count.

I shift onto my side and manage to climb to my knees. Watch shaking fingers fumble at the bottle cap and pry it open, then tilt the container till water dribbles onto Gale's face and into his mouth.

He wakes gradually, reminding me of the first new leaves on the trees after winter. I kneel anxiously over him while he stirs and exhale a long-held breath when his ashen eyes flutter open and regard me with matching relief.

"I dreamed that you died," he says, taking a deep breath that seems to shudder as it goes. "We were the last two in the arena and you stabbed yourself in the chest."

_I_ had dreamed that he'd died trying to save me from fanged mockingjays who set the whole arena on fire and killed the rest of the tributes, leaving me as the victor. But it would not be beneficial to say this aloud.

"Come on. We need to move before the Careers chance upon and kill us."

He slowly gets to his feet, and we move on. Slowly and clumsily at first, stumbling over tree roots and small shrubs, then settling back into the familiar rhythm of the woods, our footsteps soft and velvety, weapons poised and ready to kill both animal and man. It must be mid-morning, maybe eight, judging by the sun's position in the pale blue sky. I remember the starry dark one last night, its heavenly beauty marred to a terrible degree by the destructive flames of evil, and wonder if this new one will be also be affected by some other force of nature.

We trek until noon, when we come across a friendly chattering stream with pebbled bed and banks and boulders strewn both in and near it. It teems with life – fish dart in graceful, weaving patterns around the marine plant life swaying in the gentle current, as if playing hide and seek, and clumps of reeds and patches of moss and lichen litter the shallows and banks. Here, food and water will not be a problem. Shelter isn't either; several of the boulders are actually small caves that will easily accomodate two people and their baggage.

"Stay here?" Gale questions, and I agree. Water sources are probably few and far in between in this arena, and I doubt that many have ready-made facilities like this stream. So we choose a cave, lay out our things and go to the water to fish.

Fishing with bare hands proves to be a challenge. We've never fished without some kind of tool before, and it's frustratingly slow going. But we do come up with solutions.

Gale suggests shooting the fish with arrows. I consent, and he goes off to gather berries and start a small fire – we don't need to worry about adversaries with the bow – while I wade in the water and pick a few big fishes to shoot. This method bears more fruit than before, and by sundown, we have a squirrel and a fish roasting over the fire and two handfuls of berries laid out on our folded jackets. We sit pressed up together by the mouth of the cave and watch the sun set, bathing the arena in a familiar dusky gold light that fades all too soon.

Time eventually turns the sky black and flecks it with jewels, and we look up to watch the death count. It is small and short – only the boy from 3, who must have died this morning when I heard the cannon shot. Maybe he died in the fire.

I sit back and chew on my half-cooked fish – I would not let Gale light a fire big enough to produce much smoke for fear of our Career enemies. Sure, I have the bow and we're an efficient team, but _they_ have their two-metre swords and spears and six tributes in their alliance. I wouldn't want to get too confident.

"Have you set the snares?" I ask. He nods, and if we're lucky, my hunting partner's reliable traps might give us a day's good meal. If not, then we have my arrows, don't we?

We sit in silence, watching the sparks jump from the fire, landing and sizzling around us in some kind of mysterious harmony. They leap high enough to become temporary, short-lived stars, their fiery amber-gold colour in stark contrast with the others' sparkling silver. I stare unblinkingly at their glowing forms, flying and dancing in the cool night air, and say, "I love you, Gale."

He gathers me in his arms and buries his face in my hair. "Pity you don't love me as much as I love you." cool

Sitting in an embrace seems to be enough, but the night is eventually too cold and we have to go back inside the cave. But even there we lie wrapped securely in each other's arms, unwilling to let go. I volunteer for first watch – Gale must have stayed up the whole of last night and now it's my turn. He fights at first, but I make him stay in the sleeping bag and eventually he falls asleep.

The deep dark night wears on. Gale sleeps in his own peaceful world, and I sit against the side of the cave, holding his hand and stroking his face, sweeping his dark hair back from his forehead. Moonlight streams in from the mouth of the cave and bathes us in its pale white glow. Is it the real moon? Is it the one that shines through the bedroom window every night in District 12 and lights Prim's sweet face, innocent and young in rest? I hope it is, but hope is often destroyed in this dome of false reality.

The time of the dark continues in this manner. I listen to the crickets' earthen music and watch as the barely-perceptible change of dawn overtakes the blackness.

Gale wakes when the shimmering sunbeam hits his face, and moans and rolls to the other side. I laugh and touch his arm. "Wake up."

He slowly shifts and gets to his elbows, blinking, lavender eyelids heavy with sleep. He looks at me and yawns. "Morning, Catnip."

I imagine how much the Capitol people will be fawning over this nickname repeated too many times to simply be a mispronounciation. "Morning, Gale."

I unzip the sleeping bag and climb onto the cold stone floor of the cave, peering out the mouth at the dead fire with the still-sparking embers. "Fire died during the night."

He sits up fully and rubs his eyes clear of sleep. We start preparing for the day – he goes to do the snare run and I fish and gather roots. The thick, humid air suggests a hot day, and at noon it's burning, but by two, dark clouds gather and pour chilly torrents down on us.

Gale returns immediately, wet from the rain, a rabbit and a squirrel hanging from his belt. I proudly hold up my fish for him to see. He smiles and hurries over to me, his eyes silver instead of ash for once.

XxX

We spend the rest of the day sitting, talking and eating berries. It's been a while since I've done something so idle – the last five years of my life have been dedicated to providing sustenance for Gale's and my families. It feels good.

It feels me.

I glance casually out the mouth of the cave. It's raining buckets – far too much to really see more than a few feet. Everything was dark and grey and muted. Usually, I admire the gentle sun and breezes, as long as it doesn't get too hot. But now, with Gale's loving, warm arms wrapped around me and his breath blowing gently on my neck, I wouldn't mind living in this rainstorm forever.

Because if everything in a rainstorm is grey, then the two star-crossed lovers from the Seam of District 12 belong here.


	8. Chapter 8: Wounds

A/N: I'm so sorry that I haven't posted for a while, and probably won't be updating that often because now I've been getting some work. Enjoy!

We trek furtively through the rocks, following the stream as it twists and turns and chatters. It's been a lonely, rainy four days - even now a light drizzle dusts our faces and the weather is rather cool, but Gale's and my shared warmth is enough to keep us both comfortable as we go.

I'm not sure where we are going, only that we must not stay in this region. I'm getting suspicious – nobody has bothered us but the animals, and usually the Gamemakers don't allow such peace. Is there another tribute in our vicinity? Or did they want the audience to get their fill of the star-crossed lovers of District 12 before they kill one of them off?

Either way, I'm dead.

We've already done the snare run to pick up our booty and traps, and so far we have not suffered any severe dehydration or starvation. Water has fortunately been easy to find, and experienced hunters as we are, food has never proved a problem. It might be time to feel a little optimistic, but the inevitable fighting has yet to come and I'm anxious about that. I am not big enough to properly protect Gale, and it seems like many of the others can easily take him. I swipe my free hand across my face and exhale through my nose. Fighting from afar is my only hope. I'll only get hand to hand if Gale needs me.

Gale squeezes my hand gently. He must feel that I'm tense. He always knows what I'm feeling. But thankfully he doesn't always know what I'm thinking, because he would get upset if he knew that I was planning how to die to make him live.

We manage five miles due north. At two miles, the stream starts to go downhill through a thicker stretch of forest. It's darker here and while we are sure-footed in the trees at home, which have been memorized down to the last square inch, the protruding roots and creepers constantly snag our feet and trip us up. It's frustrating to say the least, and we make painfully slow progress. The rain is thickening and there's no shelter that I can see.

But the real trouble begins ten minutes later.

We're toiling through a patch of trees with low-hanging branches when a dark figure leaps out from the vegetation on our right and hurls himself straight at Gale. They go down in a tangle of thrashing limbs.

I waste no time in shooting at the figure. The arrow spears him in the arm and he shrieks, springing off Gale and landing on the mossy forest floor. I keep my bow trained on him, and Gale jumps up to stand at my side.

The figure is clearly a male, but it's hard to see who he is in the sparse green light that barely manages to clear the canopy of leaves overhead. But when he struggles into one thin beam of sunshine, we see that he is the boy from 6.

"Shot me?" he's yelling, gesticulating to the arrow lodged in his arm. "You just stabbed me through with an arrow." He picks up a jagged rock by his side and hurls it at my head. I step aside and it flies into the trees.

This boy is intent on killing Gale and I. I don't want to kill him. But if it means getting my hunting partner home, then I will.

"Sorry, 6. But my friend can't go home if any of us are alive." And before I can change my mind, I send the arrow into his skull.

He falls back onto the ground, his mouth wide open in a gasp of shock. The cannon sounds.

This is the second person I have killed this week, and I know that their features will haunt me for the rest of my short life. I regretfully pull the arrows from his body and wipe them clean with a handful of moss, then turn to Gale.

"Let's move on."

We go on, and the hovercraft descends to collect his body.

The stream eventually flows into another, similar creek, and we follow the new, larger river until it's evident that it leads to the Cornucopia. We see the lightening in the trees and stop at once, unwilling to go further but also wanting a place to shelter from the rain. We eventually, grudgingly decide to just brave the water and camp a night here.

Gale sleeps first, and after covering his dozing body with leaves for camouflage, I venture forward and duck behind a clump of shrubs. I part the leaves and peek out at the clearing.

The Careers are there, muscled, tall and outstandingly arrogant. They are comprised of the girl from 1, both from 2 and 4 and the boy from 10, who has an intelligent gleam in his eyes and a large, muscular build. I grind my teeth. A boy from 10 willing to join the ruthless, thoughtless murderers from the wealthy districts. He's even worse than they are.

They move to the Cornucopia and the girl from 4 rummages through the piles of supplies. She deftly tosses several packs of food to her allies and they laugh loudly, tearing open the packs and shovelling their contents in their mouths.

Suddenly feeling ill, I turn and move slowly back to where Gale lies. He's deeply asleep now, and he looks so much like the fourteen-year old boy who caught me 'stealing' from his snares four long years ago in the woods. Just taller and with more burdens on his broad shoulders.

Gosh, how I miss those days.

I sit by him, holding his hand in both of mine, listening to the raucous laughter of the Careers as they feast and talk. Their voices are easily distinguishable – the girl from 1 sounds smooth and sophisticated, those from 2 have a malicious ring to their tones, and 4 have a gentle, soft, melodious tone, reminding me of the waves they used to ride daily back in their district. I wonder if I should go out and shoot all of them dead. What's stopping me? I'm a good shot and they don't know I'm here.

I decide to ask Gale's consent before I do it. After all, we are a team.

He wakes when the sun just starts to rise, and I decide not to ask him. He won't want to kill anyone any more than I do and I don't want to make him murder more people. Not after the ash returns to his silver eyes and he ages four years in a second.

"Let's move on," I say instead. The rain had cleared during the night and little faster than I expected, its firm, strong illumination promising a nice day ahead. I shift my weight and help him up with one hand, slinging our packs over my shoulder with the other. Today we will go as far in as we can and hopefully be lucky enough to find another source of water. Gale suggests trying the stream again, but I turn it down. It might still be flooded and maybe the Gamemakers have thrown in venomous water snakes to bite our ankles and poison our bodies.

Before we leave for the west, we decide to check on the Careers, so I return to the cluster of shrubs and watch as they eat and splash their faces and limbs with lake water. Then half of them – both from 2 and the boy from 10 – get up, pick their weapons and head straight for the treeline, a mere hundred yards from where I crouch.

I sneak back to where Gale sits, examining an earthworm that inches lazily along the ground. He looks up when I come and asks, "Well?" But I don't answer – not verbally. I just put a finger to my lips. And he understands. We take our baggage and leave the place as silently as possible.

We're very deep in before we truly run into trouble.

The half of the Careers sent out find us.

It's terrifying when the boy from 2 leaps instantly onto Gale and his partner onto me. I struggle as she knocks the bow from my hands and rips the quiver from my shoulder, snapping the strap with a sickening sound. Gale and the boy are beside us, fighting. I growl at the girl with as much malice as I can muster.

"Leave the boy alone."

She laughs and pulls a knife seemingly from out of nowhere, tossing and deftly catching it in one hand. The other, along with the weight of her body, keeps me pinned to the ground.

"What do you care about the boy, 12 girl?" She spins the blade again and lays it carelessly on my face, drawing blood. I snap and try to bite her hand, but she forces my mouth closed.

"You killed Vanita's district partner, Twelfy."

Who is Vanita? I almost laugh out loud. She's probably the girl from 1 – those from 1 always have funny names. And yes, I did kill the boy from her district. But _he_ was killing the boy from _my_ district.

"Oh yes I did, 2."

She snarls and her nails dig into my skin. Long, rough-edged nails coated with a bloodred nail polish that is half chipped away.

"You vile creature." She raises the knife high above her head, eager to stab me. I try to kick her off again, but when I can't, I turn my head to the side and meet Gale's eyes. He's pinned down by his opponent and staring back at me.

At least the last thing I shall see is one of beauty. But

Then I remember – my life flashes by in a second, but my mind hangs on to one vivid, clear memory. One where we lay tight in an embrace on the thick carpets of the train. Soft, velvety darkness had enveloped us and we were staring into each other's eyes. He'd told me that I would see District 12 again. And I had vowed that he would –to myself, Gale and his family.

I try my absolute best not to break reasonable promises. Especially when they were to the Hawthorne family and myself. And I'm lying in soft moss, waiting for it to be broken – along with seven big hearts that have never really been intact.

Her hold is weakened; her weight has shifted back onto my legs while she prepares to kill me with the knife. Although her free hand is holding me down by my shoulder, it isn't that much that I cannot handle it.

I throw myself forward as hard as I can, clamping my teeth down hard on her hand. She shrieks – the sound can break glass – and drops the dagger. It reopens the arm wound inflicted at the Cornucopia and red liquid gushes from it, but I don't stop. I grab my bow and broken quiver and let the arrows fly. One instantly kills the boy from 10, but those from 2 only hiss in pain and sprint off, leaving trails of blood behind them, their bodies curled instinctively around the wounds.

My torn sleeve is soaked and something's dripping on the grass, and I'm starting to feel lightheaded. Now that the adrenaline is draining from my system, the dizziness of blood loss is taking me over. I fall to my knees and drop facedown on the ground. The world is shifting – I can feel it. I wonder vaguely if the Gamemakers are causing an earthquake now, and mumble for Gale to run. If he stays, then he'll die, and it's no use saving me now. If he wants to help, he has to win. Because I died for him to win, and he mustn't waste my life.


	9. Chapter 9: Dreams

A/N: Yeah, chapter nine. Enjoy!

Chapter Nine

Drifting. I'm drifting, flying like the mockingjays that fell silent when my father sang and then scrambled to match his voice's magnificence.

And while I fly and beat my great feathered wings, I relive my life.

Images flash and bleed into each other, full of colour, light, life and sound. My father singing to himself as he polishes his shaving mirror. Prim's hair, soft in my fingers as I braid it for her. My mother, cooking delicious katniss tubers and waterfowl after a fruitful trip to the lake. Gale's hands setting a complicated snare. Hazelle washing laundry. Rory, Vick and Posy playing together.

For a moment my heart seems full, warm and strangely _happy_. I haven't been truly happy for a long, long time. It's a very pleasant emotion. I've missed it.

But of course the nightmares come on again and the joy disappears.

I remember now the day when the mine sirens started to wail; I had gone to get Prim from her class and we'd shoved our way through the crowd waiting at the mine entrance for their loved ones. We searched every group of survivors for our father, and when each one did not include him, we waited. We'd waited for hours and hours in the rain, watching men being carried out on stretchers, holding on to their crewmates' shoulders for support, bleeding profusely from wounds and covered with grime, and had stood there for another few hours, even after the mine captain announced our father's death, because we just could not believe he was gone.

And then I see the time when I finally could no longer stand my mother's silence.

I had yelled desperately at her and sobbed on the floor before her, begging her fruitlessly to wake up and be our mother again and please do not to leave the only remnants of her husband to die. Prim was scared to death at my desperate pleading and she'd cried also, our combined tears forming a puddle on our living room floor. When our mother did not wake from her stupor and we realized she wouldn't ever, we had gone to bed, held each other and sobbed and screamed until we'd lost our voices.

Those were grey and bleak times.

Then green starts to come, mixing with the typical neutral colours of Seam houses. Sunshine lightens the darkness and I hear mockingjays singing and a boy crying.

I don't recognise this memory. Since when was my pretty old forest so bright and sunny? And since when does Gale cry? Gale never cries.

So I must do my utmost to console him and wash away all his misery, or at least help him forget about it for a while. I can't stand to see (or hear) him sad, and I never want to. I'd rather see him resetting a snare, or playing with his siblings, or smiling happily.

He's still weeping, harder now, and I can vaguely feel the tears falling onto my chest, dampening the fabric. I don't like when he's sad, but I hate when I don't know why.

So I speak his name, the word riding out of my mouth on a barely-audible breath.

"Gale..."

He's there instantly. I see his face, and then his eyes – oh, his eyes! How intoxicatingly beautiful they are after going so long without them. I've missed him and his magical silvery irises.

His balmy breath blows like a breeze across my face, warming my cold skin and lulling me slowly back to sleep. I feel his hand holding mine, gently at first, then holding on with all his might until I wonder if my bones have cracked.

"Sleep. Sleep and rest," he whispers, and I obey gladly. I'm still tired.

"Don't die, Catnip. Promise me that much and nothing else."

I promise, Gale. But just for now.

Just for now.

When I wake fully, Gale takes me in his arms and kisses me – I guess he thought I would be strong enough to take it now, unlike the last time I woke up, but the thing is, I'm always ready for his kisses.

His warmth feels like home, washing over me like a welcome tsunami, and his hands encircle my waist, forcing me close to him, not allowing any form of escape. I don't want to escape anyway. What insane creature would wish to escape love and bliss?

There are all kinds of things I have to say right now – that very soon he'll have to go home, and this is tragic because this is probably one of the last few precious moments we'll have together, and should we try not to get too attached so that goodbye won't be so painful. But for now I decide to forget about it all and just kiss him back, letting our fire dance to the rhythm of our racing hearts, enveloped safely in our shared warmth. His hands pull me closer, and I cannot help but realize that they are exactly like the snares they so skillfully set.

Because the one they trap simply cannot get away from them.

A futile wish, a futile hope, a futile dream.

I had often dreamed of being able to fall in love, marry, and have children that I would look after with everything I ever had to give, and everything I would ever be able to get.

But I cannot. I cannot marry or have children because then my husband might get killed in the mines and my children in the arena, and I would go mad with grief and not be able to support my mother, who would be old and incapable by then, or my sister, who might need assistance even in her adulthood.

So I have built strong walls around my heart, strong walls that I added on to every day, to prevent myself from falling in love and being tempted to marry and produce children who were cursed and doomed to live in an ugly world of sham, extortion and deception.

Now, a boy has simply touched those walls and knocked down all of them, turning each brick into fine powder that fuels the new development in my heart – a huge, glowing, insurmountable fire.

Oh, if only we were both allowed to win. Then we would, since the two star-crossed lovers of District 12 could accomplish _anything_ as long as they stood united. Then we would marry and live together forever, and earn our home more victors, and almost every year everyone would have enough to eat because of Parcel Day.

If they would only bend enough to allow one more victor, our lives would be almost perfect - as close to perfection as the most optimistic dreamer would ever dare to hope for.

Well, I can dream all I like, but dreams won't allow me to win alongside Gale. It's a sad fact of life when you live in the districts of Panem.

We sit together for a long, long time. Our water is out and the rain has stopped, so our tongues are dry and our throats ache. But those things are just minor discomforts that serve as irritating distractions from our love, persistent dreams and wishful thinking.

_What are we dreaming about?_ a tiny voice inside my head asks.

We're dreaming of times gone by, when we were still home and our love still had a chance to live.


	10. Chapter 10: Nightmares

A/N: Hey again! Chapter 10 is up, and it has some angst in it. Anyway enjoy!

Chapter Ten

I don't want to leave Gale alone when we have so little time left together, but something needs doing and it's almost as important as another day with Gale.

I need to say goodbye to those already left behind, one last time, without any distractions.

My father and mother, Prim, Madge and the Hob traders are far away and inaccessible back home and in the afterlife, but I can say a one-sided goodbye right here in the arena. I might not prepare them for my death, but I can prepare myself. I just have to let them go and maybe they'll let me go as well. Miracles do happen, sometimes, but only if you have hope. I know I have a little.

I sit by the stream, a green twig in my hand, absently shifting the pebbles around with it as I try to forget my loved ones. The cold water soaks my boots and the grey day turns into pale gold twilight, but I'm still there. Dead fish and woodland creatures that I dreamily killed lie by my feet, their eyes and mouths open in lifeless gasps for air, and behind me Gale stirs for the first time today.

"Never woke me," he mumbled, shielding his eyes against the glare of the sunset and glancing around to look for me.

"I didn't feel the need to," I respond quietly, barely waking from my reverie. "You needed the sleep and we need this food." I point in the vague direction of my kills and return to my dreaming.

Gale scoots up to me and studies my face – my protruding cheekbones, the dark shadows under my bloodshot eyes, the bruises decorating the pale, sallow skin – and wordlessly gathers me into his arms.

I love silence almost as much as I do Gale – it allows me to relax. I don't need to think of something to say and I'm not one of those people who needs to fill every minute with mundane chatter. Anyway, we are _telepathic_. I know what he wants to say aloud but won't for fear of upsetting me.

_Don't you worry, Catnip. You'll be home and safe and warm before you even know it. Just that you've lost touch with a friend, that's all._

But if he says that I will scream loud enough for every living tribute to hear.

_Friend?! Lost touch with a friend? I would have lost the only boy I have ever loved! Gale, how dare you refer to yourself as merely a friend?!_

I know he's only trying to make it easier for me – to slowly convince me that he isn't so important, so that it won't be so painful for both him and me when we leave each other. But he knows who he really is now, and he knows that his place in my life won't ever change.

He's so much more than just a friend to me – a companion, a hunter, a partner, a lover and my dream come true. Maybe I mean less to him than he does to me, but either way he's going to be the one to go home. He'll be the one to move his family into the Victor's Village and the one to water Hazelle's plants every day. He'll be the one to go on the Victory Tour six months down the road and the cause of the twelve Parcel Days that the residents of District 12 will soon enjoy.

I know I'm being very selfish condemning him to this grief, but I just don't want to deal with a lost lover.

XxX

We eat by the stream in silence, our boots sitting up on the boulder, pressed up together in a half-embrace to stay warm. Gale's made a small fire and half-cooked the animals I killed, and we drink straight from the stream.

The fake stars seem closer to earth than before when I look at them, and they shine brighter than today's sunset. I absently dig patterns into my meal with my fingernails. Maybe they want to add on to the romance by casting more starlight on us, but it'll all backfire when I lie bloody and dying on the sandy arena floor. Or him. He'll be determined not to carry on after I die, and I need to fix that. And I think I know how.

"Gale," I blurt out, breaking our mental vow of silence. "If I asked you to do something for me, would you? If it would cost you your..." No, I don't want to hint too much by adding in the word 'joy'. He needs to agree, and then he has to go home. It's a manipulative trick, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

"If it would cost you?" I edit and finish lamely, then take a drink of water to banish the raw meat taste in my mouth that suddenly seems to have grown overwhelmingly, nauseatingly strong.

"I would, Catnip," he says, strong and sure and utterly, _perfectly_ ignorant. "I would do anything for you."

Success that is sweet in a sick, wicked way, but success nonetheless, washes over me. I exhale, my breath blowing from my mouth in a warm gust of air, then I whirl around to face him and grab a handful of his jumpsuit, staring straight into the magical depths of his silvery-grey eyes.

"Then go home for me, Gale. Go home and give them my best."

His eyebrows knit tightly together and his face scrunches up in a mask of pain, looking like a man who has just been through hell and back. He closes his eyes tightly. I don't feel or hear his breath any more.

"You know I can't, Catnip," he finally says, but it's in a strained, stricken voice. "It's the one thing I can't do for you. How would I live without you? How would your mother and Prim? Don't you know Hazelle and Rory and Vick and Posy all love you, too? That the traders adore you? And me again – my blessing would be my damnation without you." He takes me back into his arms and buries his face in my hair. "Because we were made for each other, and we are each other's blessing."

He's not saying that I should go home. Which leads me to realize that he doesn't want one of us to return.

It's live together forever in 12 or die together here in the arena.

I make him a promise in my mind, ignoring his latest implication.

_They need you, Gale, and I won't let the Capitol take you away from them._

XxX

The night after the next, I find him talking in his sleep, and that in itself is worrisome enough – he's never talked in his sleep before. But what he says, over and over again with little variation terrifies me to the bottom of my broken heart.

"_Save us both, save us both, save us both"_

A chill runs down my spine and I shudder. The night is suddenly too cold and I pull my coat tighter around my body, wishing for the warmth of Gale's arms but fearing that I might wake him if I go closer. He rolls onto his side and mutters louder. I clamp my hands over my ears and try to remember happy things like my father's voice.

But Gale's relentless mumbling penetrates my hands and I open my mouth in a silent scream. Save us both? Bring us both home? How? Why? What will he do to achieve this?

Eventually I have to wake him and when I do, he starts, grabbing a stray pebble from beside him and throwing it at my head. I can see from the vacantly terrified look in his eyes that he doesn't know who I am. I take him by the shoulders and shake him hard, barely avoiding the pebble he hurled at me.

"Gale!" I hiss furiously into his face, staring deep into his eyes, trying fruitlessly to bring him back and dodge the careless blows he aims at me, until the cloudy gaze fades and he blinks. Now his eyes are wide open, confused and still terrified, but he seems to know who I am now.

But then he snatches me into his arms, exhaling my name, breathing hard, his heartbeat strong and loud and fast in his chest. I lay my head on it, trying to comfort him, but it doesn't work and he seems like a petrified child, no longer the valiant boy who once defended me from man and animal alike.

"Shh, Gale," I whisper, patting his back as gently as I can while he starts to cry quietly.

"I'm so sorry," he sobs, his tears soaking through the fabric on my left shoulder. He buries his face in the hollow of my neck and shoulder and holds onto me tightly, like I'm his lifeline. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Tell me why you are crying," I breathe, trying to soothe him. "Did you have a nightmare?"

He then spills out to me everything that he had lived through in one night of his life – fighting muscular, well-armed Careers, watching the ones he loves being mutilated and tortured to death, seeing me kill myself before his eyes, and feeling like he was slowly transforming into a grief-stricken, animalistic monstrosity himself. His words flow fast and thick, punctuated by choked cries as he holds back sobs he doesn't want me to see.

But maybe I should be seeing those sobs, because they will prepare me for all of his nightmares that will soon come true.

XxX

That night, we see that the girls from 1 and 11 have died, and that we're down to both from 2 and 7 and us, and the boy from 11. It's getting close – I've seen 11's hills and heaps of muscle and the fiery determination in his burgundy eyes. 7 look stocky and strong, at least the last I'd seen of them, and 2 are perpetually in the pink of health. We're doing reasonably well, apart from petrifying delusions and nightmares.

Yes, it's going to be close.


	11. Chapter 11: Lies

Chapter Eleven

A/N: _Hey, readers!_

_Yeah, so this is Chapter 11, and I've got a few announcements to make._

_Firstly, I'd like to say that this story is soon coming to a close. I'll try to give it one or two more chapters before I complete it, although I promise that there will be at least one sequel. Though I haven't decided on the name for it yet, there will be._

_And secondly, I will be writing some new stories – an AH fic for Artemis Fowl – and a traditional Gale/Katniss one for our good old THG._

_And now, enjoy!_

Claudius Templesmith speaks to us for the first time in a long time, and when I hear his nasally, unpleasant tones booming down from the heavens, I cock my head to one side and listen, because he can only bring good news.

The arena sound system is such that his voice rings loud and clear to all tributes, as if he is standing right before us in full artificial splendour, even though he somehow still sounds so far away. But distance really doesn't matter – not when he is speaking the words that bring life to a bleak and loveless future.

"The rule change the Gamemakers have decided on dictates that two tributes may win this Games, should they be of the same district."

I turn and meet Gale's eyes, and he shouts and whoops in triumph, throwing his arms around me and covering my head and face with kisses. I bury my face in his chest and cry, smiling victoriously when he tilts my head up to meet his lips in a fervent kiss.

Our fire flares up in a sudden explosion of sparks, fuelled by the knowledge that it will never be extinguished and the ecstasy that comes with it.

XxX

Later in the cool, moist afternoon, we leave our stream and trek a mile out to hunt and reset the snares. We're content not to kill anyone for the meantime – surviving together will be enough for now. The killing will only come when it has to.

Gale sends me to collect bird's eggs up on a tall tree while he gathers berries nearby. I gladly scale the rough, dark trunk, scattered with moss, fungi and lichen, just like the ones back in the old 12 woods. With each passing minute I'm feeling more and more like the girl I was, and with that, closer and closer to home.

It's a good feeling that I've missed, just like happiness.

I'm nearly at the bird nest when a deep brown figure shoots through the trees and hurls itself at Gale, knocking him to the ground and trying desperately to overpower him. A burning anger fills me – how dare they try to kill him with me around? - and without hesitating, I leap from three metres up in the air, landing with a sharp huff on the figure's sweaty, moist back. My arms go tight around his neck, head and shoulders, wrenching him roughly away from Gale with as much strength as I can muster.

He fights back, hard, though, thrashing around so much that he flings me back against the trunk of the tree. My head snaps back sharply and my vision blurs, but I yank an arrow from my quiver and shoot it in the boy's general direction. I see the arrow fly far into the trees, but the boy falls back anyway, gasping for air, Gale's knife lodged in his chest. I can almost see the life draining from his system, the light fading from his burgundy eyes, and recognise him as the boy from 11. Another fatality.

I don't dare go near him until the cannon fires and his body relaxes, slumping back on the grass. Then I step forward and retrieve the knife, wiping it clean with a leaf. I'm still seeing a few stars here and there, so I sit down a few metres away from the dead body and put my head between my knees.

I only move when Gale wraps his arms around me and pulls me slowly out of the range of the hovercraft that swoops down, birdlike and graceful, to retrieve the boy's body. The comparison between the corrupt Capitol aircraft and the beautiful bird sickens me to the core and I shudder.

For the first time since he arrived, I dare to take a good look at the boy. His deep brown skin is stained with blood – his blood that I spilled. I try to imagine him as a deer to banish the guilt, but with his burgundy eyes open and still full of emotion even in death, I can't. He's not a deer – he's a human boy, and I took his life from him, just as the Capitol ordered.

We bow before his dead body and leave as fast as our legs can carry us, shooting through the woods so fast that the plants turn to water and berries on the bygone bushes turn to blood – dark, sweet blood stored in capsules of thin skin.

XxX

That night, we lie together on a fork in the branches of a tall tree. The moon casts its silvery light upon our faces and I stare back at it, marveling at its cheese-coloured, perfect fullness and feeling guilty that I would admire such a creation of the Capitol.

Far, far away, a wolf howls – a melancholy and sorrowful cry that strikes me to the pit of my stomach and leaves me throbbing and hollow inside.

"Wolf," Gale whispers.

"Mutt," I correct. The cry we hear is not from the great, noble animal called the wolf. It's some kind of false creature with evil, vile intentions. Its image was taken from the beautiful canine's and twisted beyond recognition.

"Mutt," Gale agrees regretfully as the thing – the _mutt –_ continues its call. I imagine the probably-oversized monster perched on a rocky outcropping, its dark sillhouette blocking part of the moon, nose pointed at one of the stars and mouth open in a bloodcurdling battle cry.

XxX

We begin our trek early in the morning, when it's still dark. The birds are still asleep, but the night animals still call out and chatter, and they do so until the sun starts to rise and the mockingjays – the earliest wakers – begin to stir.

When the sun is well up in the sky, we cross paths with our faithful pebbled stream and camp there awhile to fill our bottles. The temperature lingers somewhere between warm and hot but the wind is blowing, carrying away any hint of balmy air or humidity with it. I used to adore days like this – days that are perfect to simply lie in the sunshine and catch up on any sleep I've missed.

But here is not a place to lie in the sun, and now is not the time to sleep. We take a long drink from the stream and set off, hiking painstakingly through the trees, cutting aside the leaves and twisted branches that form barries that are either too high to jump over or too low to crawl or duck under. It's hard going, but when twilight finally arrives, bathing the arena in its pale gold sunrays and deafening birdsong, we find a small spring with bits of fine sand and mud strewn round it.

The sky is now the colour of raven's feathers and less starry than usual, just like last night, because the moon is full and bright and significantly pale. It reminds me of chilly, spooky December nights spent hunting in the woods, our winter gear consisting of only raggedy scarfs and patchy coats, with the chill soaking right down to our bones.

These dreamy memories are the ones that slowly lull me to sleep, but their chill is soon replaced by Gale's warmth, and the feel of snow melting against my cold cheek by his soft, moist lips.

XxX

I wake instantly when he begins to shout and yell, yanking me and the packs half over his shoulder. He slides down the tree and starts to run, screaming at me to wake up, spouting curses under his breath and aloud. I want to tell him to shut up or the tributes will hear, but then I realize that Gale would never be so careless and he mustn't really be caring about stealth now.

So I swing myself hurriedly off his back, taking some of the luggage with me, and sprint somewhat groggily alongside him, not knowing what we're running from but knowing that we have to run.

"What? What?" I scream at him, hoping my voice can be heard over the roar of speed wind and the relentless pounding of our feet against the forest floor. But he doesn't answer me.

It's too dark to see much now – just the subtle sage green and brown of the plants, and shards of light as stars flash by through the canopies of leaves, which become significantly thinner as we go. But I'm still slightly groggy and extremely confused.

_What the hell is going on now?_

The trees are getting thinner still, and there are more stars visible. The creepers and vines that grab our feet get lesser and further between, and the air doesn't smell so thickly of trees anymore.

That's when it all clicks into place for me – the thinning of the forest, the stronger wind, the howl of the wolf earlier that night.

The wolf muttation is chasing us to the lake, where the second bloodbath will take place.

XxX

We run as fast as we can. Creepers grab our feet and low branches clip our crowns, but I still help Gale and he still helps me, hauling each other over the few tangly creepers we see and pushing each other closer to the ground when branches hang in front of us. But all the while our strength is waning, and I can already hear the pounding paws of the wolf close behind us, as well as its growling, furnace-hot breath and furious snarls as we stay out of its reach. The treeline never seems to come and I can swear that we aren't moving at all anymore.

And then all at once, the towering plants on every side recede and we are sprinting out in the open, sweat pouring down our reddened faces, forcing liquefied legs to move and carry us to the only refuge we can think of: the Cornucopia.

But there's wolves at its mouth, three at least, converging on something in the middle of their circle. I can't see what it is – their humongous bodies block out any view of what is beyond them. I can only think of one thing – human tribute – and then I don't want to find out anymore.

There's nowhere else to go, though. Maybe if we can just slip past the wolves...

But fortunately, their backs are turned and their hackles are raised in bloodlust, paying full attention to the _thing_ in front. We barrel past them and lunge up the smooth, slick golden surface of the horn. It's hard to hold onto but I manage, and when I reach the top, I lean down to help Gale up.

And then we both get a good look at the monstrosities that litter the field.

Each and every one of them is heavily muscled and at least two metres tall, with amazingly humane eyes and fur (hair?). Around their necks are thick, sturdy collars with numbers on them, each made from a different material. The one that was after us is now at the foot of the horn, standing on its back legs with uncanny balance, its front paws put up against the metal. It has thick, coarse dark brown fur, huge burgundy eyes and knife-like teeth set in a foaming mouth, as if it's rabid. It has the wide collar tight around its neck, with the number _11_ set in it, woven from stiff straw. The wolf behind it has a coat of silky, wavy golden fur, emerald eyes and the same vicious teeth, but a different collar. This collar is made of thick gold, inlaid with all kinds of precious jewels, with the number _1_ on it. And the small one off to the left, with the curly copper-red fur and eyes, with _5_ on its collar...

I shriek when I make the connection, my face going as white as a ghost. I cling on to Gale and scream profanity, instinctively drawing away from the wolves and almost falling over the opposite side of the horn.

"The dead!" I yell hoarsely. "They're alive!"

The boy from 11 – burgundy eyes and dark hair. The girl from 1 with her emerald eyes and gold hair. And either the girl or boy from 5, both with the small build and copper hair and eyes...

The dead tributes reincarnated in wolf muttation form.

I see the blood drain from Gale's face as he looks in horror at the snarling, rabid wolves, and then at the human tributes by the treeline, running madly from the two right behind them. The humans from 7, tailed by the wolf-forms of the boy from 10 and the girl from 9. We watch in silent terror and revulsion as the mutts overtake the tributes and leap onto them like real wolves onto rabbits, bringing them to the ground, snarling and crying out as they kill them.

Looking behind us, I see the boy and girl from 2, running from a group of three big wolves, both the vicious, arrogant demeanour and the blood long gone from their faces. I wince when the big black wolf in front pounces on the girl and brings her to the ground, his teeth tearing into the boy's arm as he does so. The boy continues, taking advantage of the brief reprieve when all three turn to finish off his partner, eyes glowing in bloodlust. His arm is ripped open and blood is pouring down from it, leaving a trail behind him as he goes.

He manages to climb the horn and I whip an arrow into the bow, pointing it straight at him, but his eyes are wild and crazed with terror. He chokes and collapses. Gale keeps a knife at his throat, forcing him to stay down, while I loose arrows at the wolves converging on the Cornucopia. Three go down but two more deftly leap out of the way, and the arrows meant for them arce into the trees. The big blonde wolf in front shoves the dead bodies of its pack members into a heap, then jumps atop them and snaps at us, its teeth barely missing the toe of my boot. I fire into its open, foaming mouth and it falls backward, rolling down the hillock of corpses and coming to a stop at its ally's feet.

"Kill the boy," I rasp as the fourth mutt nudges the fresh body onto the heap, following its predecessor's strategy. "Kill him now and we'll both be safe."

The sun is starting to lighten the sky – imperceptible shades of grey break through the black and chase the stars away. Dawn is breaking, and it will be the most beautiful morning of my life, no matter how fake it is.

But when Gale slits the boy's throat, respectfully closes his eyelids and lets him fall into a pool of his own blood, the Gamemakers 'rethink' their rule change and decide that it would be better to stick to the old law, leaving us frozen to the spot and dumbfounded, realizing that our fortune was all a hoax.

It was a trick, and we'd fallen for it.

I raise my knife.


	12. Chapter 12: Warnings

A/N: Last chapter before the epilogue. Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 12: Warnings

I saw her fall, blood flowing like water from a tap when she plunged the knife into her stomach and pulled it out. It would have stabbed her in the heart if it weren't for my hand, which reached out to sway it from its course to her chest. Her unspeakably beautiful grey eyes were full of physical agony and sickly sweet triumphant relief when she took the first step to taking her life, and that was the first time I had ever been sorry to see her happy.

Now I stand in the glittering gold sunray of my last dawn, a knife dripping with my lover's blood in my hand. She lies gasping for air and coughing blood at my feet, and I am ready to prove that the Capitol will never win.

We are united to the end, and they can't change that. Even the knife that ended our lives is the same.

I broke my promise that we would both come home, but that was never really a promise to be fulfilled.

I kneel down and touch foreheads with my Catnip one last time, my lips brushing hers and lingering there for a few seconds. "Goodbye, Catnip," I whisper on a whistling breath. "If you get home, give them my best."

I smile sadly at her and then raise myself to my feet, throwing back my shoulders and lifting my chin, rising higher, showing the Capitol that I will never hunch and bow before them in defeat. I will never let them be the Victor for the seventy-fourth year in a row.

I am, I realize, ready to die.

It's solid proof for the first time in my life when I raise the bloody dagger and close my eyes, my fist tightening around the hilt.

"Goodbye," I whisper to my faraway family, and prepare to die.

But then a large aircraft appears in the sky and swoops down to my level, and a panicked voice booms across the lonely arena.

"Stop!" it yells, and when it makes the official announcement, it's so rushed it does not sound the least bit formal. "I declare Gale Hawthorne and Katniss Everdeen, the tributes from District 12, as the Victors of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games!"

It's one burden off my shoulders, but when I fling the knife over the side of the horn and carry Catnip with me onto the ladder poking from the descending hovercraft, I know that she won't have much longer to live if they don't do something. Her blood is soaking her jumpsuit and coating her lips, and I feel real fear for the first time in my life - I can practically see the blood draining from her body. Am I going to lose my first love today, after mere weeks?

When the ladder is drawn up into the hovercraft, a team of doctors in long white coats whisk Katniss from my arms and lower her onto a metal table. A nurse leaves the group and attends to the scratches and bruises ono my body with chilly, soothing antiseptic, but I don't pay any attention to her. I'm craning my neck and shifting about in a desperate attempt to see her through the overlapping bodies of the doctors. But they block her out completely, and I find myself screaming her name repeatedly in a hysterical voice that I have not heard from my mouth since the day I was born.

I see a small, bloody, shaking hand try to lift itself, stretching painfully beyond the doctors' barrier. My name is croaked in a hoarse, un-Catnip-like voice, and I am instantly reassured – tensed muscles relaxing, tight fists loosening. If she's well enough to speak and raise her hand, she'll be all right.

Now that I'm calm enough to handle, the nurse takes me by the elbow and leads me away to a separate room where a smaller team of doctors and nurses waits.. The first nurse gestures to the hospital bed in the centre of the room. I willingly lie down and she takes out a syringe, injecting the clear fluid into my arm.

And then comes the onslaught of nightmares.

XxX

When I wake, I find every trace of every scar gone from my skin.

In desperation to find something of my old body, I look for the long scar on my thigh where a wild dog had lacerated me a few years ago, one that I had looked at when I had to remind myself that I was strong enough to live through hard times. It's gone too, leaving barely a mark on the trademark olive Seam skin.

Unbelievable. What have they made me into? Am I just another one of them now?

In the middle of my disoriented musings, the door opens and Catnip comes into the room. Every mark has been erased from her skin, too, leaving no physical evidence of her exhaustion, but her eyes betray her body. They always do.

I open my arms and she climbs into them, and we hold each other and I let her cry into my chest until she looks back up at me. "We survived," she says. "We won."

I bury my face in her hair and breathe in the uniquely-Catnip scent of pine, sun and several different types of flowers. I smell her and I feel the warm, fresh spring breeze fanning across my face, the gentle summer sun warming my skin, the gold, red and brown autumn leaves crackling and crunching under my feet, and the cold winter snowflakes melting when they fall on me. It's uniquely us, and anything that is us is something that the Capitol cannot take away.

"Yes, we won."

XxX

KATNISS

The morning after we came back to the Training Centre, when I emerge from the shower into the prep room, I see Cinna standing at the table, laying out a tissue-wrapped dress that must be for my interview. He looks up when I come in, my body wrapped in a fluffy bathrobe that seems too artificially comfortable after the rough nights in the arena of hell.

"Ah, Katniss," he sighed and smiled, opening his arms. I willingly return his embrace, and when we pull apart, he gestures to the tissue. "Your interview dress. You don't get to see it until after your faithful trio prep you." He smiles and bows, and then the door bursts open, slamming into the wall, and in rushes the three extravagantly-dressed members of the prep team. Cinna gives me another small bow and leaves.

The tall woman with the sparkling jet black hair and the violet, glittery eyes and eye makeup – Lelisa, I learn – puts me in a bath of lumpy white liquid and scrubs me down. The younger girl with heavily layered, glossy red hair and turquoise eyes washes and treats my hair, along with the boy of same age, who has spiky neon blue hair and green eyes - Niadine and Julius. They all wear clothing with spikes, jewels, and all kinds of patterns and styles too crazy to decipher. To prevent myself from migraines and many levels of annoyance, irritation and anger, I stop looking at them and instead watch tiny tufts of dark hair fall to the floor, listening not to their shrill, incessant chatter but to the sounds of water dripping from a tap across the room.

They're all just so pretentious and fluffy and plain ignorant that it just makes me feel sick. I can't be healthy unless I'm not here.

It's an allergy. I've been had it since before I was born.

XxX

The night of the interview is starry and moonless, and I squint against the glaringly bright stadium lights to see Caesar Flickerman in his chair and the brightly-dressed Capitol peacocks that form my audience, who sit before me screaming my name and holding up banners. The glass dome above us offers protection from the warmth and humidity of tonight, keeping us in the comfort of cool air-conditioning that chills my bare arms.

Thank heavens Gale will be coming out soon after I do.

I smile and shake Caesar's hand. He guides me to a plush leather loveseat set up diagonally to his chair, then calls Gale's name and has him come out and sit beside me. Then the questions start.

We answer and smile the way we should, and the interview runs smoothly until we get down to more intimate details.

Like our nearly-tragic romance.

"Before the Games, we didn't even know you were together," Caesar says. "You didn't show it, even though we did know you were friends."

"Only when things got desperate did we begin to show it," Gale answers quietly. "We can't help but comfort each other when the arena terrifies us so."

I see one of our interviewer's blue eyebrows raise – just a little, but enough to see. He catches the rebellious implication of anger at the Games, but then he regains his balance and meets my eyes instead. "Katniss?"

I shift in my seat, grasping Gale's hand tighter. "Same goes for me, I guess." I smile a little bit, just as Effie taught me to do before the first interview. "There's really nothing more to say." And that's a lie. I don't want to let them in on the first kiss we shared before the reaping. They know too much about us already – why choose to tell them when there's a choice?

Caesar laughs loudly. "Ah, same couple, same experiences, huh?"

And then he guides us on, navigating us through intimate details, which we deftly lie our way through, and more public subjects like how it feels like sitting here after weeks in the arena. When he dismisses us and we make our way backstage, Effie pounces on us, while our faithful mentor Haymitch Abernathy lags behind, looking more sober than I've ever seen him and somewhat depressed. I want to wonder why, but first we have to fend off Effie's shrill remarks and compliments.

"Flawless!" she keeps saying, usually followed up by a synonym like 'marvellous' or 'fantastic', and she just goes on and on about how absolutely wonderful we were until Haymitch clears his throat and asks to speak to us alone.

He leads us up, far up to the roof of the Training Centre, where the winds howl and the windchimes tinkle so loud that we can barely hear a thing. There he sits us down on a cold metal bench and clears his throat uncomfortably.

"I would apologize for not keeping tabs on you in the arena," he starts, looking down at his shiny Capitol loafers. "And I am sorry, but there are more important things to say."

Hate rushes in a bloodthirsty heatwave through me, and I want to stand up and knock the liquor-saturated brains from his skull. How dare he? When we were fighting for our lives, he sat by in the lap of luxury, drinking from fountains of wine and living out of buckets of money. Now he says there's more important things than apologizing for letting us die. That damn rat.

But I must look pretty violent, because Haymitch raises his hands and quickly says, "It concerns your families."

He's now gotten both of our attentions, and so he speaks quickly, just loud enough to hear above the wind, but it's as loud as any of us dares to go.

"Listen here. You don't have your happy ending yet - you still are star-crossed lovers. You're still in danger. They're still in danger." He takes a deep breath. "The government officials weren't too fond of the suicidal challenging thing and all those anti-Capitol implications you two kept pulling in the arena." He laughs drily, pulling out the flask of liquor he keeps at his hip and taking a swig from it. "It's causing dissent in the districts. We got the brunt of their cruelty, but the rest want their freedom too, bozos."

He looks us straight in the eye now, his Seam eyes full of tipsy liquor effects, an easily identifiable sadness and a fiery rebelliousness that I can't fully comprehend.

"They think of you as the instigators of their rebellion. It's coming, you know. And it's coming soon."


	13. Epilogue: Shadows

Epilogue

_gale_

The extraordinary girl-turned-woman Katniss Everdeen is, I am proud to say, someone who belongs to me.

She has weathered a self-sacrificial stab to her abdomen, many setbacks and countless heartbreaks, and yet there she stood, our arms linked, hypnotically beautiful in a gown that shimmered and scintillated around her resilient form like the fire she is. Her heart is big enough to accomodate the innocents who roam Panem, and her smile genuine and trustworthy.

She's everything everyone wants to be – beautiful, kind, compassionate, resilient and brave.

But now, five months down the road from that day, she is just another of the shadows that shift and blend, green and brown, moving like wraiths in the misty, safe, dim confines of our precious forest.

* * *

He turns in his swivel chair and looks the men around him straight in the eyes, one by one.

"We're playing with fire, gentlemen. If you aren't careful, you'll be burned."

_the end_

* * *

_A/N: PLEASE READ_

_Hello readers. _

_Well, this is the final chapter of this story, and I have a few things I need to say._

_I just want to say thank you – to each and every viewer, favouriter, follower, and lovely reviewer. Special thanks goes to multiple-time and constructive reviewers like To be a rebel, RadioFreeDeath, NicoDiAngelo101, thebunnylikestosaygoshness, Daemons Run, kitten899, and Ellenka – who has been a reviewer since my first story and chapter. But thank you to everyone. Each one of you brings a smile to my face and a new meaning to my day._

_-StarsAtNight_


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